What’s In A Name?
Mr. Google
It’s Tuesday, August 27, 2024, as I begin writing this post. About two weeks ago, I was on my laptop doing a search for videos of “The Gordon Lightfoot Band.” My name, of course, is associated with this, so along with a gazillion videos (none of which do justice to our sound, having been recorded with iPhones), there were also references to my website, blog, and some other bands and recordings I’ve been credited with—the usual stuff.
But something else caught my attention this time.
Two extra videos under my name were new to me. I’m not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, and this proves it…..I tried to figure out when I had posted them.
Well, DUH!
It had nothing to do with me. There’s another musician named Mike Heffernan. He’s from the Ottawa area.
More Like A Zucchini
My father was an only child, so we had no relatives on that side. Other than my immediate family, I didn’t know of any other Heffernans until my first year of high school.
A few years ahead of me was a student named Bill Heffernan. He ran for president of the student council, and during his nomination speech in front of the entire school, he said (referring to my brother and me), “And I’m not related to those two Niners.”
“Niner” was a pejorative. It referred to the ninth or freshman grade. In a school with the largest pickle ever up its abusive ass, new kids were treated with scorn until their sophomore year.
I had accepted that my surname was uncommon and was very surprised to find another family nearby with the same last name as me. But what about someone with both first and last names? I didn’t even consider the possibility.
Stay Home If It’s Just A Sore Throat
Ten years later, I was at my doctor’s office for a check-up. He opened my file and said:
“How are you doing with the sugar problem?”.
“ I don’t have a sugar problem.”
He closed the file folder and left the office for a moment. He returned quickly with another folder and explained that he had another patient named Mike Heffernan whose records were mistaken for mine.
That’s scary. What if two guys with the same name are in a hospital, one for bronchitis, the other for a sex change, and the staff mixes up the charts?
One wants to be feminine but goes home with Benylin…..and……wait for it……….The other arrives with a hack and leaves with a rack.
Pretty Sure The Leafs Lost
Let’s move ahead again by five years. Most of the people I knew in the music business were getting answering machines. I was sharing a telephone with my father and sister at the time, so it made sense to get my own line for one of these machines. In the phone book, I was listed as Mike Heffernan.
I got home from a gig late one evening, and as usual, the machine’s light was blinking. There were seven messages:
- Hey Mike, we’re gathering at Joe’s place before going to the game. Leafs and Redwings. Fucking eh!
- Alex is driving us to the subway man. Too hard to park downtown. We gotta leave by 6:30.
- Hey man, it’s 6 o’clock and we haven’t heard shit from you. There’s still some fuckin’ pizza left. Hurry up.
- Mike, you asshole. It’s 6:15.
- We’re leaving.
Hours later:
- This is Mike. Sorry about my friends. They thought they were calling me.
- By the way, I made it to the game.
I Think Not
The latest census shows 16,276,267 people live in Ontario. There are 14,747 family doctors and 10,779 dentists, but there are probably only four or five Mike Heffernans in the province.
In 2015 the physician I wrote about earlier retired, and I needed to find a new one. At the same time, I was looking for a dentist. I found them. What are the odds that they both already had a patient with my name?
Astronomical, but that’s what happened!
The MH I was talking about at the top of this post sent me a message to say Hi just a few days after I noticed him. Another coincidence!
Got His Degree At Trump University
Synchronicity is a concept by psychologist Carl Jung describing events that coincide in time and seem related but are lacking an apparent causal connection. His assertion that these events are meaningful leads to my assertion that he was full of shit.
But you gotta wonder…..